Bye Bye Missoula, MT

It was sad to say goodbye to our blogging friends, Sherry and David of In the Direction of Our Dreams. We had a great time going to the 6th Annual River City Roots Festival in Missoula this past weekend. Sherry and I hung out together while the guys had a beer. We haven't run across very many bloggers or RVer friends in our travels as we haven't been fulltiming long enough to cross paths with them.

First band of the afternoon, the Lil' Smokies

I love trying to get closeups of the band when they play their instruments...These guys were GREAT!

I used my Canon Powershot SX20-IS for these shots of the festival today....I like the way they turned out! It's really fun to people watch and see who shows up for events like this...Not sure why the stilts man is there, but he gets attention, that's for sure!

And this daddy/daughter duo were really enjoying the music...look at that red hair! You don't see that very often!

The festival was small, but some great live music. We were there long enough to hear just the first band...the Lil' Smokies played some great bluegrass music! Sherry and I compared camera notes, she was trying out a new Fuji digital camera. Together, we decided you gotta read the manual to know what you are doing! After the festival we went out to dinner at a GREAT restaurant in downtown Missoula--the Ironhorse Brew Pub on Higgins Street. Man, was the food GREAT! and the company was terrfic! Sherry and David are really great people to hang out with. Eldy learned a lot about solenoids this weekend, as David had to replace one. Eldy learned that it's important to check the little things as well as the more major things, like fuses before replacing stuff. That one was sorta like which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Did a bad solenoid cause the fuse to blow or was it the other way around? (HUNH?  Sparky, best to leave the electronics explanations to the more knowledgable. Sometimes Sparky gets a little mixed up in her thinking) Yes, indeedy, I sure do.......

We chatted about lots of different things on different occasions with these two. Sherry and David had just come from Yellowstone, where we are going, and they are heading to Glacier from whence we had just come. (WHENCE? Good grief, woman--speak English! says E.) Oh, I just had to throw that in there, I thought it sounded good, rolls right off the tongue, ya know? (Maybe yours, but not mine, laughs E.)

At any rate, here are our recommendations for Missoula in the short time we stayed there--four days:
1. Check out the Smokejumpers Training Center by the airport---it was interesting in our opinion and it's free!

2. Downtown Missoula has more brew pubs/bars/taverns than you can shake a stick at---fun looking places and bet they're fun on the weekends!

3. Jim and Mary's RV park---wonderful place to stay but not too family friendly--no pool, not much for kids to do, but full hookups, shady, big rig friendly, spacious, grassy green lawns, lots of pretty garden flowers and sculptures in contrast to the stark, dusty, dry landscape outside the park and just a really great atmosphere for a reasonable price, and great place for folks to stop by and stay for a few days while exploring the area.

4. Iron Horse Brew Pub--best food in town, a truly terrific meal, everybody loved their food choices--I had black and bleu steak with a blue cheese cream sauce, Eldy had great fish and chips and sweet potato fries, and they had great salads...McKenzie's Pizza (think I spelled that right) is another restaurant we checked out--good sandwiches and really cool atmosphere although we didn't try their pizza. Big, varied menu, reasonable prices, lots to choose from.....

And that's it for Missoula, folks! If we had stayed longer, we would have more to tell ya! We are heading today to Island Park, Idaho to the Buffalo Campground for four days....It's in the Targhee National Forest.....it's about a 300 mile drive.  See you there!